If you're out on the road
by justanoutlaw
Summary: Where You Lead Remix. In a world where Emma & Neal never broke up, but Wren & Neal's relationship was even more turbulent.


**On the first day of Giftmas, I give...QueenOfTheMerryMen a Where You Lead AU where Swanfire raises Henry and 10 years later...Wren falls ill leading to some Golden Swan family moments. Something we talked about based on a This Is Us scene. Check out her stuff, it's awesome!**

Neal knew that he was ungrateful. Plenty of kids would want to be in his position. To live in a nice house, go to a school where things weren't constantly falling apart and to have a chance to graduate from college without any loans. Yet, all of that came with a price: to be constantly judged and have your entire life planned out for you.

Wren Gold wasn't a bad father. He just…wasn't the kind to give warm hugs or say that Neal had done his best at the end of the day. He expected top grades and for Neal to make the headmaster's list every term. Anything less than success wasn't tolerated in their home. Neal was expected to go to Yale, just like Wren had done before him. All of the Gold men had attended the Ivy covered halls and there was no way that he would be the exception. It didn't matter that his dreams were to travel for the first few years after graduating. Wren always squandered that wanderlust, just as he did anything artistic that Neal had in his mind. Neal would become a lawyer or a doctor, just like his father. He would marry a cute girl from school.

Neal's entire destiny had been laid out for him by the time Milah got pregnant. His mom had buckled under the pressures of motherhood and taken off not long after. It was always just him and his dad against the world. At first, that was a good thing. And then Wren got stricter. More was expected of Neal. Suddenly, the fun times became less. His photography wasn't as accepted. Wren enrolled him in etiquette classes, pushed him into cotillions and trainings for escorting girls at coming out parties.

"_You'll be a proper Gold man, yet."_

As if that was all his life amounted to. As if he was never destined to be more than that.

Sure, there were good times. Like when Wren bought him his first camera right before their trip to Scotland when Neal was 10. It had been just the two of them, thankfully. Malcolm had some business to attend to in New York. Neal still had all the pictures from that vacation and looked back on them fondly. It was one of the last times he and his father saw eye to eye.

Then when he was 14, a whirlwind of blonde curls and wild green eyes entered his life. Mary Margaret and David Nolan had moved from the Midwest after the latter's cookie business had become lucrative. Their business was a success over night. After much pressure and persuasion, they had been asked to move to Greenwich to expand. With them, came their two children. They had their son, Benjamin, and their daughter, Emma. She hated the move with everything in her. More so, she hated Chilton Academy. She didn't fit in with the snotty yet very smart girls. She couldn't stand the uniform she was forced to wear.

They were like two bitter peas in a pod. Neal and Emma would ditch classes together, spending time in their empty houses, smoking cigarettes and stealing their parents' good liquor. They talked about the dreams they had to travel after high school and ditch their parents' plans for them.

3 months later, Neal was still working up the courage to kiss Emma when she did it first in the 7-Eleven parking lot.

"I just wanted to know what it would feel like," she told him.

They were even more inseparable after that, just with their lips. It didn't take long for her parents to find them making out in her bedroom when Emma was supposed to be watching her little brother. To give them all the benefit of the doubt, Wren tried to give his son the sex talk. The Nolans did the same with Emma.

It was all for nothing. A year later, Emma came to him, thumbs fiddling. Her face was paler than normal. A plastic bag stuck out of her LL Bean monogrammed backpack.

"I think I'm pregnant," she mumbled.

People say when you die, you watch your life flash before your eyes. In that moment, Neal watched all his dreams go out the window. He didn't even have the results, but he knew. They weren't the most careful. Half the time, he forgot to bring a condom. They kept telling themselves that they kept getting lucky and if it didn't happen last time, what were the odds it would again?

As it turned out, sex on Neal's balcony when they both tried to hide out from the awkwardness of his father and grandfather had done them in for good.

At first, it seemed to be what would break them up for good. They had very different ideas of what they wanted out of the baby.

"I can't be a mother," Emma whispered. "I have all these plans for after we graduate."

"We can't just give this baby up. He's our future now," Neal argued.

"He needs more than us! He needs two adults!"

"We can grow up. We can do this!"

"You're living in a fantasy world!"

"No, I'm trying to do the right thing for our baby!" He bit his lip, trying to remember some of the cases his dad had told him about. "And you can't give him up without my consent."

Emma's eyes locked on him and he stood firm. He wasn't going to give up his son. He wasn't going to be like his mother and he was certainly going to try to do better than his father.

Telling Wren was like swallowing a hornet's nest. The look of disappointment and shame. Watching as he tried to figure how they could hide it.

"You'll marry her," Wren said, finally. "That's the only way to fix this."

Neal let out a shallow laugh. "Dad, she doesn't even want to raise this baby. She isn't going to want to marry me."

"I'll talk to her parents. They'll show her it's for the best."

"No! This isn't your choice to make! It's ours!"

"You're still a child!"

"I'm not a child anymore!"

"You're barely sixteen!" Wren snapped. "This baby doesn't change that fact!"

"No, what it changes is that you can't control my life anymore and that drives you crazy."

To give them credit, Mary Margaret and David did try to talk some sense into Emma. Not about marriage, they thought that idea was insane. But they didn't think she was fully ready to walk away from the baby either. Yet, Emma stood firm. She didn't want the baby. She kept saying that she didn't even want to look at he or she when they were born. Unlike Wren, they backed off. Neal wondered what that was like. To have parents that may not have agreed with you, but would steal support you.

The months went by and Emma barely spoke to him. He went to every sonogram and watched as his baby grew. Emma barely looked at the screen, even when the tech would point out something new. She wouldn't answer Neal's questions and she stopped showing up to lunch. He could hear people whispering about her and he knew he got off easy. Emma was the one carrying the beach ball under her cardigan. He didn't have a sign stamped on him. People could forget he was the father. Neal tried to be there for her…but she didn't want him there.

"It's not just my fault, you know," he said, one particular afternoon when she was angry at the world. They were leaving school and she was still refusing to talk to him. "It took both of us."

Emma let out a bitter laugh and rolled her eyes. "Trust me, I know. No one is letting me forget it."

"You don't have to do this alone! I want to be there for you! Your parents want to be there for you! Why are you pushing all of us away?"

Emma turned to face him, tears in her eyes. "Because where are you going to be in a few months when he or she is here and I'm not raising it?"

And Neal didn't have an answer to that. Emma finished her walk to her yellow bug, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Wren still thought marriage would solve all of their problems. He offered to let Emma move in, offered to let Neal go live with the Nolans if they felt more comfortable with that. Neal didn't want to talk about it. He knew deep down it wasn't really his father's fault and yet he blamed him for the distance. He found himself like Emma, angry at the world.

And then three months later, everything changed.

Neal was awoken in the middle of the night by the landline on his nightstand ringing. Mary Margaret told him that Emma was in labor. She had left a note behind and taken the bus. They were on their way there as they spoke, but they also knew that she would want him there. Neal woke up his father and off they went. Ready to meet the newest member of their family.

Emma was already in the room by the time they arrived. She didn't want anyone else in there. Even Mary Margaret and David lined the hall. They stood against the wall, Wren's cane scraping against the floor. No one said a word, but Neal knew they were all thinking the same thing: everything in their life was about to change.

An hour later, a nurse stepped out. "Neal Gold?" She asked.

Neal looked up. "Yes?"

"Emma would like to see you."

Neal stepped into the room and found Emma sitting up in bed. In her arms was a baby wrapped in the standard hospital blanket. She stared down at him, with a look about her that Neal had never seen. She was cooing at him. Emma Nolan could coo. Who the hell would've guessed that?

"Emma?"

Emma looked up. "I wasn't going to hold the baby."

"I figured."

"But then the doctor asked…and I did."

"I just…he's perfect."

Neal paused. "He?"

She nodded. "It's a boy."

A smile broke out across his face and he walked closer to the bed, taking his son in. He was squishy, mostly, with no real defining features. Still, Neal found himself whispering, "He's perfect."

"He is." Emma stared back down at the baby. "We can do this. Together."

Neal looked up from his son to back to his…well, he wasn't sure what Emma was to him anymore. "Really? You want to?"

"Just…not here. I can't be in Greenwich anymore. I can't raise him around people who point and stare. Who care more about money than being a good person." She let out a sigh. "I love my parents and my brother, and we'll still see them. Your dad too, if you want. But I need to get out of this town if we're going to do this."

She was asking him to give up everything. It was stupid, it was reckless…

It was the adventure they had always talked about.

They didn't tell anyone when they came into visit. All they said was that Emma had changed her mind and wanted to parent. Henry David Gold came into the world and changed everything.

When Neal left to pick her up a few days later, he had packed up the bug with everything they would need. The clothes people had gifted him for the baby, some of his own and the stuff Emma had asked he swiped. He left the note in a place he knew his father wouldn't find for a couple of days. Not until he wondered why he hadn't heard from him at the Nolans.

Neal picked up the two people he loved most from that hospital and they drove for only an hour until they found their new home. Stars Hollow.

Main Street was lined with shops, two dedicated to cats. There was a diner named after a grandparent. People had white picket fences and there was a man singing with his guitar on the street corner with a small audience. Children ran around the park laughing. Couples walked around holding hands.

Neal drove to the inn and did his first act as a father. He asked the owner Beverly Lucas for a job, any job. She took one look at him, then at his young girlfriend and newborn baby, then offered him a busboy position at her diner. She told Emma she could have an alternating waitress shift once the baby was older. She'd take a bit of rent out of their checks and in the meantime, they'd live in the tiny loft above the diner. It smelled like grilled onions and only had a living room, a kitchen and the bathroom was separated by a curtain, but it was home.

They'd later learn that Beverly only did it because her own daughter had run away from home when she was 16. She also had a baby. It took her years to find her granddaughter, and that didn't happen until Anita's murder. She never knew if Anita and Ruby were safe during that time, but she naively hoped that they had someone like her looking out for them.

The next 10 years were anything but easy. Mary Margaret and David tried to get them to come home often, especially after they saw the crappy loft they lived in. Emma stood her ground. Wren never stepped foot in Stars Hollow and it took Neal six weeks to give him a call. While Emma would grow to have a better relationship with both of her parents, Neal's own with his father only became worse.

They fought a lot those first few years in that tiny loft, figuring out parenting beliefs and how to best be a couple. There were times they broke up and Emma went to stay with Granny and Ruby, but it was never for very long. Four years after their start, Neal got a job as a bell boy at the inn and found a love for it. He started making repairs in his spare time, slowly working his way up the chain. Emma worked at the diner until she could get financial aid for Stars Hollow Community College. She got her associate's in criminal justice and became a cop. They moved out of the tiny loft just in time for Henry to start kindergarten, into a place with two bedrooms. It wasn't anything fancy, but no longer reeked of onions. And by his 8th birthday, they bought a house just off of Main Street.

When Henry was 10, Neal gifted him a fishing trip that he had been asking for. Emma had the house to herself for the first time in forever. She wasn't quite sure what to do with it. She could visit her parents or perhaps invite Ruby over. Instead, she decided to take a long bubble bath and catch up on some of her favorite comedy shows that Neal had recorded for her. Just as she was about to select a bath bomb, her cell phone rang with a number that she didn't quite recognize.

"Hello?"

"Is this Emma Nolan?"

"Yes."

"This is Belle Gold. I'm your son's step-grandmother."

This took Emma by surprise. They hadn't seen Wren since last Christmas and he hadn't mentioned anything about a wife. "You're shitting me."

Belle paused. "I can assure you that I am not "shitting you", Ms. Nolan."

"It's Emma, please. What's going on?"

"My husband had a heart attack."

Emma slid down onto the side of the tub. "Is he…is he okay?"

"They gave him surgery and they think he'll be fine. He hasn't asked for Neal but I know if it was my son…"

"You'd want him there." Emma bit her lip. "Listen, he's on a fishing trip with our son, but I'll try calling him."

"Thank you. He's at Yale New Haven."

Emma hung up her phone and the lock screen returned. A picture of Neal, with his arm around Henry. Her partner rarely talked about his father. They saw him at the required holidays, Neal groaned through them. Henry was getting older and he would call his grandfather a bit more frequently. Even so, Wren was a touchy subject in their family.

She didn't know what his response would be, but she found herself selecting his number and calling him anyway. It almost immediately went to voicemail. Of course. No reception on the lake.

"Hey, I uh…I don't know if I should leave this on here, but your dad is in the hospital, Yale New Haven to be exact. He had a heart attack." She paused. "I know that you feel conflicted about him, but I got the call and I thought you should know…I…I'm gonna go there now. If you get this in time, meet me there. If not, have fun with Henry." Another pause. "I love you. Always."

She hung up and let the bath bomb slip back into the basket Henry had made for her for Mother's Day. Her relaxing day would have to wait.

Yale New Haven Hospital was a good hour and a half drive from Stars Hollow, a half hour from Greenwich. Even so, Emma knew why Wren was there. He was a graduate of Yale. His entire life was that damn school. Even on his death bed, he'd want only the best.

Emma checked in, fibbing that she was actually Wren's daughter-in-law. She and Neal had never gone through with an actual ceremony; they hadn't felt the need for it. It wasn't like she was asking for personal information, just the floor he was on. Plastering the sticker on her red leather jacket, she headed to where he was staying.

A petite brunette walked out of the room, her hand over her growing baby bump. Emma tilted her head in curiosity. "Belle?" She asked.

The woman's blue eyes perked up a bit. "You must be Emma. I've seen pictures." She looked around. "Is Neal…"

"I couldn't get a hold of him, but I left word."

"Oh."

"I'm sure he'll come as soon as he hears."

"Yes, I'm sure he will too."

Emma tried her best not to stare at the baby bump and instead looked at the room in front of her.

"Wren's up for visitors," Belle continued. "If you want to go see him. I was just going to go call his father."

Emma grimaced. "I don't envy you on that job."

Belle chuckled a bit. "Thanks."

Emma walked into the room. Wren looked much weaker than he had the last time she had seen him. A tube ran through his nose and there were various machines there to keep him up. Emma hated hospitals. The last time she had been in one was when Henry broke his collar bone when he was 7. Scariest moment of her life.

"Hey there, Mr. Gold."

Wren slowly looked up at her. "Emma." His voice was weak, but the Scottish accent shone through.

"I got a call from your wife." She took a step closer. "And I see you're going to give me a brother or sister-in-law. Any other secrets?"

Wren looked away again. "It's not as if you and my son visit much."

Emma knew she couldn't argue there. "That's between the two of you. I don't keep him from you."

"I never thought that." Wren coughed a little. "I also never blamed you completely for what happened. It takes two to get into the mess you were in."

Emma was a bit surprised to hear that come out of his mouth. "Well…thank you."

There was silence. Wren wasn't going to ask about Neal. They were both so stubborn. If it wouldn't make her a hypocrite, it'd drive her nuts.

"Neal took Henry fishing early this morning," Emma explained. "I left word on his voicemail but I don't know if he got it yet."

"Wouldn't blame him if he didn't show. Wasn't entirely surprised when just you showed up."

Emma sighed, shaking her head. "You both were stupid all those years ago."

"I was the parent. It was my job to be responsible for him. Maybe if I had done more, if I hadn't pushed him so damn hard…"

"You didn't ruin him," Emma interrupted. "He's too strong for you to ruin him."

She thought of all the double shifts Neal worked those first few years, just so they could make it. He cheered her on through community college. He was never too tired to play with Henry, even after bussing tables or carrying bags to rooms or fixing the stairs at the inn. He was always their hero.

No matter what Neal had to say about his past, it didn't break him.

"If anything," Emma continued. "I think he took his past and chose to become an amazing dad and partner because of it."

Wren nodded. "And I can't take any credit."

"No, you definitely can. Because there are times I see you in him and it's not bad. There are times it is, but mostly it's not."

Her phone buzzed. A text from Neal.

_We're on our way back now. I'll drop Henry off with Granny and Ruby, then go see him._

Emma gently smiled. "He loves you. You two have a complicated relationship and he may not say it enough, but I know he does."

"To be fair, you have to be taught to say I love you, Ms. Nolan. I don't think I taught him."

"And your dad didn't teach you."

Emma settled into the chair beside his bed.

"You two have a choice now. Turn shit around before it's too late or continue to let it fester. I know you probably intend to do better with that little one on the way, but why not fix this mess first?"


End file.
